Gingrich: No Time for 'Another Amateur' in Washington

In a final plea to Iowa caucus goers tonight, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich declared that this is not the time for another amateur to run the United States.

“We’ve had three years of an amateur. Washington is too complicated. The problems are too hard,” Gingrich said in Cedar Falls moments before the start of the caucuses.

“I am the only candidate who worked with Ronald Reagan to turn around the economy, to grow jobs and at the same time to defeat the Soviet empire in the 1980s and who then went on, taking the Reagan playbook and in the 1990s reformed welfare, cut taxes, brought unemployment down to 4.2 percent, helped created 11 million new jobs and balanced the budget for four years.”

Gingrich also asked voters to consider which candidate is best equipped to take on President Barack Obama’s billion-dollar campaign, meet him head-on in the debates and “decisively” defeat him.

Gingrich also reminded voters that he has attempted to run a positive campaign while his rivals have not.

“You have a chance tonight to send a signal to America that the consultant-driven viciously negative campaigns are totally wrong for this year when America is in these kind of problems and you can do that by refusing to vote for anyone who has run negative ads and you can insist on voting for someone who’s been positive,” said Gingrich.

With wife Callista by his side, Gingrich added that the conservative movement has an opportunity to take advantage of Obama’s weaknesses and win one of the great historic victories of the 21st century.

“With your help we will try to lead that movement to a decisive change in Washington for our children, our grandchildren and the future of our country,” he said.

In her final plea to voters, Rep. Michele Bachmann reminded Iowans that she stood up against Obamacare.

“We are here to reclaim the greatness of this country. We are unwilling to allow Barack Obama to implement socialism in the United States of America,” she said. “That will not happen on our watch. We won’t let it. That’s why as a member of Congress I stood up against Obamacare. I stood up and was counted and led 40,000 Americans to Washington, D.C. to say ‘no’ to the crown jewel of socialism, which is socialized medicine.”

Bachmann urged voters to not allow the federal government to run housing or the automobile industry in the United States.

“We’re better than that. We’re America,” she said. “Barack Obama continues to treat us like we are a third world banana republic. We aren’t. We’re the United States.”